US Marshals Step In To Keep Florida Police Department's Stingray Documents Out Of The Hands Of The ACLU

from the big-brother-protected-little-brother dept

The incredible wall of secrecy erected by law enforcement agencies around their use of "stingray" devices (cell tower spoofers) continues. Harris, the manufacturer of most of these devices, gets the secrecy ball rolling with non-disclosure agreements, which law enforcement agencies have liberally interpreted as a right to refuse public records requests and, in one case, an excuse not to seek warrants before deploying the devices.

The reason the ACLU wanted to dig deeper into the Sarasota PD's files presented itself in the first response.

The Sarasota Police initially told us that they had responsive records, including applications filed by and orders issued to a local detective under the state“trap and trace” statute that he had relied on for authorization to conduct stingray surveillance. That raised the first red flag, since trap and trace orders are typically used to gather limited information about the phone numbers of incoming calls, not to track cell phones inside private spaces or conduct dragnet surveillance. And, such orders require a very low legal standard.

Trap and trace/pen register statutes are routinely being abused as a way to route around warrant requirements. The NSA's bulk record collection was partially "justified" by a very liberal reading of pen register statutes. What once was a warrantless, targeted, limited-time collection has now become a catch-all for stingray surveillance and NSA programs.

The Sarasota Police set up an appointment for the ACLU to view its stingray files (as is required under Florida law), but that meeting was cancelled shortly before it was supposed to take place.

[A]n assistant city attorney sent an email cancelling the meeting on the basis that the U.S. Marshals Service was claiming the records as their own and instructing the local cops not to release them. Their explanation: the Marshals Service had deputized the local officer, and therefore the records were actually the property of the federal government.

This interdiction by the US government to lock up documents the ACLU is seeking is astounding enough, but what every other entity involved did is even more so.

Nathan Wessler at the ACLU points out that, US Marshals or no, the police department is required to hold onto any documents requested for at least 30 days. Instead, it allowed the US Marshals to move the records off-site to an undisclosed location. With those files out of reach for an undetermined amount of time, the ACLU approached the court which would have signed off on trap and trace orders requested by the Sarasota Police only to find out that no such records exist.

The court doesn’t even have docket entries indicating that applications were filed or orders issued. Apparently, the local detective came to court with a single paper copy of the application and proposed order, and then walked out with the same papers once signed by a judge.

The ACLU has now filed an emergency motion seeking to block the Sarasota PD from turning over any more files to the US Marshals Service. It also asks the court to find that the department violated state law by turning over the requested documents to the US government.

The obvious question here is why both of these agencies are so reluctant to turn over these documents. If they're willing to break state records laws (the local court being complicit in this activity), the information contained must be pretty damaging. What has been discovered already points to the department's deliberate avoidance of a paper trail, what with the single document requests and the misuse of the trap and trace statute to avoid filing warrant requests.

If you've got nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear, as the saying goes. The government expects us to live by that adage as it deploys warrantless surveillance, but it seems unable to hold itself to the same standard.

I thought Obama said that he would have a fair an open government and that his government would not be like the Bush era government was.

The lengths that the Obama government will go to make sure none of their technology that is used to spy on Americans is astounding.

The U.S. government is stacking the deck and using technology against it's own citizen and is relentless in the pursuit to keep it's citizens in the dark with regards to it's use and who and how it is deployed.

As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

You sound like it's news that Obama and Bush are alike. If you haven't figured it out by now, there's more difference between Coke and Pepsi than there is between Bush and Obama, whether you're talking about trashing the constitution, prolonged discretionary wars in the Middle East, TARP pork handouts, entitlement expansions, etc.

What we need are two honestly-different political parties, and parties that have some actual principles. What we have are two sides of one party that each has a flock of lemmings believing that there are significant differences.

ACLU blog

"The ACLU filed a motion asking the judge to unseal the transcript, citing the public’s First Amendment right of access to court proceedings. In response, the government tried to justify continued secrecy by invoking the federal Homeland Security Act and other federal laws. As the ACLU explained to the court, those laws have no bearing because this case involves state judicial records, and because the government has waived its ability to invoke broad secrecy arguments by already releasing significant information about its use of stingrays."

Because

Trained To Kill: The Policing Tactics The Public Isn’t Supposed To Know About

MINNEAPOLIS – On May 28, 126 police officers in Seattle filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that restrictions placed on the department by a federal court in 2012 regarding officers’ ability to use excessive force was a violation of their constitutional rights as officers.

Although the restrictions were put in place by the feds to curb the rampant unconstitutional policing the city was experiencing — especially when it came to the use of excessive and deadly force against mostly minority suspects — the officers argue that having to restrain themselves while on duty only leads to an increase in the number of citizens and officers killed.

In their 81-page filing, the officers specifically argue that they are often put in situations in which they have no choice but to overreact and use force. They also say that the current “impractical and burdensome” restrictions only “trap” officers and lead to an increase in misconduct violations.

Represented by a Washington, D.C.-based former civil rights attorney, the lawsuit reportedly reflects the “political agenda and rhetoric from the virulently anti-reform police union, the Seattle Police Officers Guild,” and not necessarily the feelings of the Seattle Police Department itself. However, Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, says the union does not support the lawsuit.

Still, the Seattle-based officers have continued to push for a federal judge to issue an injunction to freeze the use-of-force regulations, at least temporarily, as well as provide financial compensation for those officers who were improperly disciplined or lost wages for violating the use-of-force policies.

The only reason the Federal government would be interested in this is because it exposes a huge hole in the legality of their own operations.

In bits and pieces, it is starting to unravel just how illegal all this spying is. Court case after court case against the government and it's various branches, one bit here and one bit there is leaving it's unsavory actions out to air in public.

The willingness to grant the government the unopposed right to determine on it's own what is a national security matter and what is an illegal matter is rapidly shrinking in view of the Snowden releases and one by one in various courts. It's only a matter of time before the card house falls. Question is can Obama and the various Congress critters get out of office ahead of being held responsible for their actions?

I've worked in courts long enough to be utterly perplexed by this. I can imagine the files being sealed and made non-public. But actually allowing the files to be removed?! What's the legal basis for that?!

Re:

You're off topic. If you want to submit a story to techdirt, click the "Submit a Story' link on the top of the page.No offense intended, but I'm clicking the 'report' button on your post, and this one of mine as well in the hopes of getting them hid from the rest of the conversation.

Re: Re:

It's definitely on topic, a peripheral issue on the larger subject of police abuse.

Since I'm sure that TC doesn't have the time to write a story about every instance of this topic (reader-submitted or not) so I thought a better way would be to include related topics of interest in the comments section, where they could be seen by everyone -- rather than ending up in a black hole.

... but then, it seems that a few of the Techdirt trolls might prefer these stories be banished to a black hole.

Anyway, if Techdirt staff were to come out and say not to post related news links in the comments, then I'll stop.

Re:

...was a violation of their constitutional rights as officers.

I must have missed that part, but where exactly does the Constitution specifically give cops rights citizens don't have?

...especially when it came to the use of excessive and deadly force against mostly minority suspects — the officers argue that having to restrain themselves while on duty only leads to an increase in the number of citizens and officers killed.

Translation: The rules put in place to reduce the use of excessive and deadly force against suspects is somehow increasing the number of people killed. Because reasons.

Oh, even more bluntly: 'We became cops so we could legally shoot at people, rules that restrict our ability to do so take all the fun out of it!'

If they're going to make that claim, they really need to back it up with facts, and of particular interest would be how many officers and suspects were injured/killed before the rules were put into place, compared to how many are injured/killed afterwards.

They also say that the current “impractical and burdensome” restrictions only “trap” officers and lead to an increase in misconduct violations.

Translation: 'It's not our fault we keep breaking the rules, it's the fault of the rules!'

Represented by a Washington, D.C.-based former civil rights attorney,

'Former' apparently being the correct word here with a lawsuit like this.

However, Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, says the union does not support the lawsuit.

Talk about a pleasant surprise, even the police union in the area isn't supporting this, which just highlights how bad they think the lawsuit is.

Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

I'd love to have the Pirate Party make a major showing in US politics, both because they seem to be a solid choice and hold reasonable stances from what I've seen, and because simply having a political party with 'Pirate' in the name would likely cause the *AA's and their pet politicians to spontaneously burst into flames.

Re: Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

Re: precedent setting?

Clinton did it, Bush followed suit, and Obama is blowing the damn hinges off with it.

Of course the local po-po's would see if they could get their friend the Marshall to do it for them too after their own attempt to pull it off failed! These guys play together and scratch each others back.

Re:

As I see it, the real issue is that ever since "9/11", the government has taken the attitude that the ends justify the means. Legal, illegal, secret, not secret, etc, just doesn't matter because security is the only important thing. Look,,, we have secret laws, secret courts, secret prisons, secret mass internal surveillance, secret no-fly lists (which probably will eventually be expanded to other forms of transportation) and probably a lot of stuff we don't know about. We have state and local police being trained and equipped more like paramilitary forces. All in line with the ends justify the means.

Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

I couldn't agree more! Unfortunately, the two parties have pretty much completely rigged the system to make it as close to impossible for a third party to be viable. Fixing that is incredibly important, but won't happen any time soon (and won't happen until some other things -- such as the money problem -- get fixed first.)

Re: Re: Re:

I consider it off-topic, but not so far off as to warrant clicking the report button. Really, this should be a full story all by itself. It won't get the attention or commentary it deserves just sitting in a comment.

Re: Re:

The U.S. Marshal Service is the legal custodian of any court order or warrant related document to this case regardless of it being in the hands of Sarasota. Therefore the ACLU is not entitled to the documents unless it files a FOIA request with the U.S. Marshals Service. The Sarasota officer was a temporary deputized person working under the authority and jurisdiction of the Marshals Service and is not an employee of the Service. The Service affords Sarasota and thousands of other departments the expertise of the Service's employees and the technology it employs to investigate fugitive cases. To protect investigative secrets the Marshals Service is perfectly in its right to seize the documents. Thanks have a great day.

Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

I truly believe that we would be better off with NO parties. Let the candidates stand on, and be responsible for their own platforms. Don't live up to your campaign promises, automatic removal from office, and lose the ability to run again.

To accomplish this, all money must be removed from the system. Let the government fund elections, and control political advertising in the sense that they distribute, to candidates, the ability to run an equal number of ads as compared to their opponents (and then pay the bill), and no outside political advertising.

There is absolutely no good reason the rich should be the only people to be able to run for office. There is no good reason a homeless person should not be able to run. Either should be able to articulate their positions, but beyond that it should be the voters choice, not some committee conferring their approval, not the size of a bank account.

Re:

Why would the US rail against fascism and totalitarianism? What they are fighting are regimes that try breaking the link between money and power.

Representative democracies are providing a pretty wide distribution of corruptability distributed across a comfortably small set of decision makers. Being a billionaire consequently provides a respective level of comfort, security, influence and power rather than being ridiculous and meaningless.

Communist, socialist and junta regimes are ok with the U.S.A. as long as they are corrupt enough to accept money and deliver returns for it, usually by exploiting their citizens and/or natural resources. So the U.S. is pretty fine with China while Cuba and some similar countries are rather frowned upon.

Re: Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

It might be possible to fix the two-party lockin without first fixing the money problem, by instead first switching to a Condorcet-satisfying voting system - i.e., one based on ranked preferences (with appropriate methods for comparing and evaluating those expressed preferences), rather than on "vote for only one".

Unfortunately, the odds of that happening for any election higher than Mayor - without first fixing the overall locked-in political system, which is the goal of all this in the first place - are if anything potentially slimmer than those of getting the money problem fixed.

Re: Re:

Translation: The rules put in place to reduce the use of excessive and deadly force against suspects is somehow increasing the number of people killed. Because reasons.

Oh, even more bluntly: 'We became cops so we could legally shoot at people, rules that restrict our ability to do so take all the fun out of it!'

I suspect the cited reasons would be "Because we can't use force as readily, criminals are able and willing to use force both against us and against law-abiding citizens, resulting in more of us and more of those law-abiding citizens being injured and/or killed.".

This may even be true, though at this point I'd at least want to see statistics supporting it (and probably some of the studies underlying those statistics, as well). The next question would be what the tipping point / balance point of the tradeoff is, where the cost from an increase in the successful use of force by criminals becomes enough to outweigh the benefit of the reduction in excessive use of force by police.

Re: Add the US Marshal Service to the list of of SlimeBalls

They are just another agency in a bag of tricks to use against an ever growing number of enemies this and other governments must defend against.

Can you imagine this kind of stuff going on _ on a nice planet? I pity the foo who thinks this kind of stuff will become the norm for long. But, the saddest part, whether we like it or not, is that we are all in this together.

Re: Re: Re: As we say in the South, 'bless your heart'

I agree. As did some of the founding fathers, who overtly stated that the very existence of political parties poses a threat to the political system.

Unfortunately, that's a utopian ideal, not actually possible in reality unless you're willing to violate our right of free association. In fact, it's so infeasible that the very founders who decried the concept of political parties went on only a few years later to form their own.

Re:

"It's only a matter of time before the card house falls."

Unless the Fed can get another good old fashioned WAR going somewhere, and do the old "Look Over There" routine that always ends all investigations into wrong doings by the fed and its friends, because "enemies".

Let's face it folks. They are protecting their own asses, because they've been breaking the laws and thumbing their collective noses at "your" constitution and at the laws of the land.

My guess is that this is just another blackmail program and they simply have to keep the public from learning what they really do with all that surveillance data, because otherwise the cash cow dies.

Remember. In an "ownership" society, the laws only pertain to the common (resource) citizens. The rulers and their control infrastructure personel are always exempt from such restrictions.

The PrivacyCase uses military grade shielding technology to give you the ability to block unwanted intrusions into your cellular phone and wireless devices. By controlling when and where your phone can send and receive information, the PrivacyCase prevents remote activation, GPS location-tracking and real-time audio/video eavesdropping.

Originally built to protect business and victims of domestic violence and stalking, from commercially available cell phone spyware. The PrivacyCase was designed to meet or exceed NATO EMSEC specifications.

Law Enforcement? more like rogue traitors with technology

Every person involved in these obviously criminal eavesdropping should be in jail.

You can always depend on the fed's to be true criminals but when the locals step out of line they need to be stomped hard.Defund the entire dept and rehire all over, blacklist the criminals and make sure they never work in security again.